Abstract
Because what can be more familiar and lonely
than a window? The elements eventually
blotting what it sees. The way rain falls orphaned
and volatile upon it. Each drop undressing
itself coyly to reveal half the sea
half the dust.
Is snow not just water that changed its mind?
Wishing instead to die cold rather than wet.
Fluid. Like us. Where we fall is where we end.
If earth is the sky's boneyard haven't we all died
once before? The strong probably dying double.
Are muscles not just tombs
the big bury tragedies in?
When the weather is warm we open windows.
Fanning our anxieties with air. Inside our homes
we arrange flowers picked carefully for their colours
and mouthless beauty. Condemned to perish upright
inside the puddled prison of a vase.
Bats are the only mammals that can fly.
Bats are really mosquitos that survived.
It's only the females who bite.
A painting of a hibernation cave amidst
a lightning storm is outstripped by its frame.
Its owner a taxidermist with a penchant
for red meat and Nietzschean philosophy.
Hole in the sky. Hole in the heart.
Doesn't the air around the slaughterhouse
feel like a mugger's blade placed inside
a baby's cot? Tonight, everything smacks
of the colour yellow burning.
A westerly wind picks up to whip the dust
from the bookshelf. The window stands
guard. Where is everyone? Where are we all?
Locked in our cities. Drumming armless in Lycra.
Notice how night could be mistaken for tomorrow,
looking for something nice to wear. My dear,
are you not sick of seeing yourself dressed
in the same dark? By the same definite voice
crawling through windows like a thief,
fraught with the same silent trembling?